


Morning Light

by soavezefiretto



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Love, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:16:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soavezefiretto/pseuds/soavezefiretto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After DeadAlive through Existence, Scully and Mulder reflect on their relationship and the moments that led them to the present situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my native language, and this has not been beta read. First post on AO3.

1.

The morning light that flooded the apartment was cold. A shiver ran down her spine. She had spent hours there trying to make it look as comfortable and welcoming as possible, polishing tables and fluffing pillows, but as soon as Mulder crossed the threshold she realised it had been a mistake - this wasn’t *his* apartment he was coming back to, it was how *she* wanted his apartment to look like. She should have left it like it was, she should have allowed him to return to a familiar environment: the dust he was used to (at least some of it), the smells, shoes lying on the floor where he had kicked them off his feet, discarded shirts, unmade bed, books stacked on chairs, maybe even a dirty plate or too. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t eaten many dinners there, or slept in his bed many many nights…

Now, everything was neat and straight and smelled like pine-scented house-cleaner, and Mulder looked thin and lost and couldn’t even sit down on his own sofa. He said “I am happy for you”, perching awkwardly on the edge of his desk, vaguely waving a hand at her swollen belly, but his eyes were so distant that he might as well have been back on the spaceship that had taken him away. 

Since he’d woken up in the hospital there hadn’t been a single kiss, a single touch. As if there was an invisible force field surrounding him. Do not come near me, his body said. Please. 

So she didm’, and after checking that the fridge was stocked, she went home and cried for half an hour. Hormones, she thought. Just hormones. 

In the days that followed, he turned away from her even more completely. Turned away from Skinner, too, from everything that was not work. The color of his skin was still slightly grey, the scars still ugly on his face, making her heart hurt every time she looked at him. The mission, the quest, that was all that mattered. She understood, of course she did: it was the only way for him to get back some semblance of control, of balance. He was just getting his sea legs back, like he’d said. 

Did he know how much it pained her, what it took for her to smile at him when he spoke of their unborn child as if it had nothing to do with him, cracking jokes about the possible paternity of the pizza man? Did he see how it hurt Doggett to be dismissed so completely, antagonised so violently for no reason at all, after spending all those months looking for him? Scully knew Doggett had come to admire Mulder, not only through what she had told him (which wasn’t much, it was a subject they didn’t touch often, mainly because Doggett was tactful enough not to remind her of it if it could be avoided), but through his work, through his actions in cases like that of the Soul Eater, through his passion: the same reasons why she had come to respect and admire Mulder all those years ago. He had been looking forward to meet Mulder and had expected, not unreasonably, some gratitude: for his unrelenting effort in finding him, for keeping the X-Files alive, for being a good partner for Scully. She wanted to tell Mulder about that, wanted to tell him that they had an ally in agent Doggett, someone who could help them both keep honest and true in these uncertain times. But it was almost impossible to find a crack in the wall of anger and wit he had built around him. 

There were moments when she told herself that this might be it. This was the new Mulder, the Mulder they had pulled out of that grave: obsessive, brilliant and paranoid, like the old one, but with none of the tenderness, none of the wisdom and, it seemed, none of the memories. Hard and cold as the morning light had been, that first day back in his apartment. She didn’t dare to think about what that would really mean - that, after all that had happened, after all they had both suffered, she had to lose him like this. That she would have to raise their child alone, worse than alone - with the living, breathing memory of what could have been. 

But then there were other moments too. Moments filled with hope and warmth and light. Like that night he came to her hospital room at two in the morning after the scare with the partial abruption; he said he’d been in the field with agent Doggett, and he didn’t sound irritated or angry. She could see he was trying to figure him out. “He’s worth it”, she told him, and Mulder just nodded. It made her happy to imagine them both working together. And then Mulder put his hand on her belly, where their child was growing, and she saw the wonder in his eyes, and his smile. 

Or the few times he had gone with her to her Lamaze class; he claimed it was because he was unemployed and he had nothing better to do, and had a seemingly unending supply of vagina jokes, but when he put his arms around her, when he whispered in her ear not to forget her breathing, when he stroked her belly while the instructor was showing them a video - there was a closeness there, an understanding. There was a future in those moments, a future that dissipated much too quickly once he got back to the work, the mission, the fight against all those who wanted to destroy the truth, his truth. Then that cold hard look crept back into his eyes, and Scully was left to wonder if it had all been in her imagination. 

Which inevitably brought her back to that night, that night in his apartment almost eight months ago. When he was gone, as the chances and hopes of finding him constantly diminished, that night had become bigger and bigger in her thoughts. It had become That Night, with capital letters, perfect, magical, sublime, the answer to every question, the end of what came before and the start of everything else. Feeling her child growing inside her, wrestling every day with the grief and the loss, she didn’t have the strength to challenge the accuracy of those memories. She didn’t have a reason to. And when the dream of having Mulder back became a possibility and then a reality, Scully had just assumed they would pick up where they left it. 

But where did they leave it? What did they really have then? A relationship? Or just a moment in time? Now that she knew about his illness, it all made so much more sense - the silences, the distance, and then the sudden intensity.

And now they were running out of time, and it seemed that, no matter her feelings and longings, no matter her unanswered questions, about herself, about her child, about all of their futures, Mulder was right: the only thing that mattered was that this child was born, and was born safe. She could feel her strength gathering. It was going to happen, her child was going to come into the world soon, very soon, and its mere existence would challenge their lives in ways not to be anticipated. Sitting next to agent Reyes, watching the morning light of a new day settle on an unfamiliar landscape, Scully began to relax.


	2. 2.

2.

It was deep dark night. Mulder had no idea where he was going, and only a very vague idea of what he was doing. Find her, of course. Protect her. Protect the child. Against what? How? And what then? He had no answers to those questions. All he knew was that she was out there, somewhere, and he could hear her call. He could feel it. 

“What’s the location, sir?”, the pilot asked. 

“I don’t know. Just - south, I think. We’re going south.”

The pilot looked at him strangely, but didn’t say anything else, and so their flight began.

It had been night for so long, it seemed. He said he didn’t remember any of it, he would say it until the day he died, and for the most part it was true. But there was a darkness, a coldness that burrowed deep into his bones, that he knew was not a dream. He had been there, on that black ship, and the scars on his body were proof of what had been done to him. He used to believe the experiments were done to create a human/alien hybrid, that innocent human beings were being used and discarded for the purpose of allowing the colonisation of earth by a race of aliens, with the active help of a conspiracy of men. Which was probably true enough, but now he knew something else, knew it without the shadow of a doubt: these aliens, and some of these men, inflicted pain because they enjoyed it, because they could. And Mulder found that, for all the horrors he had seen and experienced, for all he knew of evil, after everything, that was a knowledge too heavy to bear. How could he be happy about a child coming into a Universe where such creatures existed? How could he take delight in knowing that he was the father of this miracle child, that he was responsible for creating another life, when all he wanted was to to turn away? From life, from hope, from the future. 

He’d said he wanted to fight the future, but he was sure no one believed him. He certainly didn’t believe himself. All he wanted was to drown it all out: all those people looking at him, expecting - what? A big revelation? A breakdown? Did they want him to be changed, or should he be like he was before? Did they think he knew the truth now? 

And did he? 

All he knew was that he could see her suffering. How she was waiting for just one look, one word from him, a sign to acknowledge that they were in this together, that they were still - them. That he hadn’t forgotten. 

And he hadn’t. But there seemed to be no way to tell her. There was only fear, the kind of fear he’d never felt before, deep and pervading and absolutely paralysing. Only now, sitting aboard a helicopter en route to who knows where, he remembered those other moments when, for some reason, he’d forgotten the fear, or the fear had forgotten him, and he was living in the present again: feeling her breathing, in and out, very concentrated and just a little embarrassed, during her lamaze class; the indescribable sensation of his hand on her belly, enjoying the simple happiness of knowing they had created another human being; looking at her when she was unaware of it, a habit he had acquired many years ago that still brought him a keen, fresh pleasure. Her face was never the same, really. He could look at it for hours…

“Democrat Hot Springs.”

Had he actually heard Doggett say it before the phone was slammed out of his hand? Did he remember it from some other conversation that had nothing to do with were Scully was now? Was it even a place? 

“Democrat what?”

“Democrat Hot Springs!” Mulder grabbed the GPS and typed it in, then showed the map to the pilot. “This is where we’re going!”

The pilot nodded and adjusted his course. 

“How long?”

The pilot raised his left hand, all fingers stretched, then pumped it in the air three times. Fifteen minutes. We’ll get there well before morning, Mulder thought.


End file.
